Research Paper
Undergraduate
Counseling Ethics: Standards, Dilemmas, and Decision-Making
Counselors have a unique opportunity to help others gain a higher level of fulfillment in their lives. Becoming a professional counselor is often a "calling" that requires education, skills and training.
Evolution Be Taught in Schools? Introduction /
Should Evolution be Taught in Schools?
Introduction / Thesis (Part One)
The debate between those that believe in creationism – or "intelligent design," a refined offshoot of the creationism theory – and those who believe in the science of evolution, spilled over into the schools in the United States many years ago. Conservative Christians and others who are in denial vis-à-vis Charles Darwin's research and theory argue that at the very least their religious-based theories should be placed side-by-side in public school textbooks. Scientists, biologists, teachers, scholars and others who accept the empirical nature of scientific evolution have battled to keep creationism and intelligent design (ID) out of the science textbooks – with some degree of success albeit in certain conservative communities and states politicians and school board members have overruled logic by those insisting that ID be part of science textbooks. Some objective scholarship sees this debate as another example of the recent trend toward the rejection of science among certain groups in the country – including the dismissal of enormous volumes of empirical data related to global climate change. Journalists, scholars, and other informed observers view the recent refutation of science-based research as related more to political ideology and religious beliefs – embraced by conservatives, evangelicals and others in the U.S. – than to fact-filled dialogue that leads to scholarly debate.
Thesis: Notwithstanding the pronouncements and beliefs of conservative ideologues, politicians and spokespersons within the evangelical and other movements, evolution is no longer a theory, it is science, and hence it should be taught in public schools and indeed teachers should be well informed and prepared to defend science against attacks from the right.
Bioecological Theory and the Family and Community
According to Bronfenbrenner's bioecological theory, there are five environmental systems that an individual interacts with:
1. Microsystems – these are the institutions and groups that most directly impact the child's development and include family, school, community, and peers
2. Mesosystem - this refers to the relations between the different Microsystems, for instance the relation between th parents and the teachers/ school; or between the parents and the church, and so forth. These contexts too effect the child.
3. Exosystem - an external system of another may impact one of the ecosystems (or microsystems) of the child. For instance, the mother's work may impact the child's family life, or a teacher's challenging domestic situation may influence her teaching hence impacting child.
4. Macrosystem – this is the wider culture in which the child lives. These include developing and industrialized countries, socioeconomic status, poverty, and ethnicity . The larger cultural context shares a common identity and shapes thoughts, behavior, feelings of the child. The macrosystem also changes gradually and subtly over time due to its own often indiscernible influences. (Kail, & Cavanaugh, 2010).
5. Chronosystem: The external sociohistorical and personal events that happen to the child that impact him. For instance, divorce may negatively impact the child, particularly during the first year. As regards, sociohistorical changes, females have never had it better than now with the increase of tolerance and gender equality